SHSAT Sunset

Tag: stuyvesant

  • Hey DOE: Revamp the SHSAT The current exam doesn’t accurately measure ability

    Part of the reason for this disparity is that many kids don’t find out about specialized high schools and the SHSAT early enough, if at all. “In my middle school, my class didn’t know there was an SHSAT. We were considered the dumb class because we didn’t test well in elementary,” says Angie, currently a senior at Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists. She is black and Latina. “However, the higher performing class got to take it as well as the prep they needed.”
    […]
    But then I talked to my classmates and saw other sides to the issue. For example, one of my friends in middle school got nearly failing grades, but his parents paid for private home tutoring for the SHSAT and he ended up going to Bronx Science. It’s unfair that a lazy and complacent student can ace the test and go to a great school, while a straight-A student who might not have passed the test or even known about it would be denied admission.
    […]
    When Angie, who wasn’t told about the SHSAT as an 8th grader, took the SAT in high school, she got one of the highest scores in her school. “People said, why didn’t you take the SHSAT? You could have gotten into a specialized a school,” she said. “So I think info needs to be distributed a lot better. Not being told about this opportunity makes me feel like the kids in my class were just expected to fail.”

    http://www.ycteenmag.org/issues/NYC263/Hey_DOE:_Revamp_the_SHSAT.html?story_id=NYC-2018-09-16

  • Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative: Letter To Chancellor Carranza

    Below is an open letter to Chancellor Richard A. Carranza from the Stuyvesant High School Black Alumni Diversity Initiative (SHSBADI). SHSBADI was formed in 2010 to address the declining enrollment of Black and Latinx students at Stuyvesant and the city’s other specialized high schools.

    The letter below outlines SHSBADI’s recommendations for ways to increase the number of Black and Latinx students at Specialized High Schools along with their thoughts on the pending State Legislation (S7983, A10427 and S8503) to address this issue. 

    https://www.stuyalumni.org/open-letter-to-chancellor-carranza/

  • Everyone needs help getting into Stuyvesant: What it really takes

    Now that I mention it, I don’t think I was all that good at the test questions at the beginning. But my mother, a math teacher, had a blue shoulder bag of “manipulables”: toys, essentially, that she used to explain concepts in geometry and probability. The blue bag was always in the foyer, as if she might need it at the last minute while escaping a fire or running late for work.

    My father, who taught English, discussed the books I was reading, even (despite his love of realism) the Star Wars spin-offs. When I got stuck on a test-prep problem, they were happy to help and had time to do so.

    https://www.amny.com/opinion/columnists/mark-chiusano/high-school-admissions-test-nyc-shsat-1.18994239

  • Stuyvesant Principal Eric Contreras In Favor of ‘Mixed Metrics’ Assessment Instead of Only SHSAT

    Principal Eric Contreras is stepping down, but is in favor of using multiple criteria for measuring merit, as opposed to the single roughly 100 math and English multiple-choice SHSAT.

    That makes both the principal and valedictorian of Stuyvesant pro-reform.

    Though Contreras told the Journal he is in favor of “mixed metrics” to be used in admissions, his letter does not directly address the current debate engulfing his school community. But he highlighted some diversity initiatives under his tenure, such as a tutoring and mentoring program for students at middle schools that are underrepresented at Stuyvesant and the relaunch of Discovery, a program that offers admission to students who just missed the exam cutoff and who complete summer work.

    https://chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2018/08/28/read-what-stuyvesant-principal-eric-contreras-had-to-say-about-stepping-down/

  • Nix this admissions test: A recent Stuyvesant grad makes the case against the SHSAT

    Student argument against the SHSAT

    Defenders of the current system, hailing the test as establishing a level playing field, argue that if more black and Latino students truly wanted to attend specialized high schools, they could just study harder. I have repeatedly heard my classmates champion this mindset, implying that black and Latino students are not as hardworking, and, even more disturbingly, not as smart as their Asian counterparts.

    The SHSAT, however, does not measure work ethic or intelligence, but a student’s ability to answer over 100 tedious multiple choice questions in under three hours. It tests for access to tutors and cram schools that teach students the skills they need to answer the questions without thinking.

    I flunked my first practice tests. After a prep class and some tutoring sessions, however, I knew all the tricks. If I hadn’t had access to that class, I likely would not have gotten into Stuy.

    http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-nix-this-admissions-test-20180607-story.html

  • Elite New York High School Grads Ask, Where’d the $4 Million Go?

    Yet alumni have struggled to raise an endowment like those at other top U.S. schools. The closest was an effort begun in 1999, called Campaign for Stuyvesant, that over the years managed to raise about $4.5 million, on its way to a $12 million goal.

    It never made it. Today, all that’s left is about $330,000. Alumni, including members of a group called Concerned Stuyvesant Alumni, want to know where it went.

     https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/elite-new-york-high-school-grads-ask-where-d-the-4-million-go